


An Orphan and an Altean

by Fire_Bear



Series: Klance Month 2019 [12]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Klance Month 2019, Langst, M/M, Missions, Role Reversal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-16 04:27:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19310611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fire_Bear/pseuds/Fire_Bear
Summary: Lance once, briefly, thought he would be alone after a tragic accident killed his family. But his friends had pulled him through and now he had a space family, of all things.Everything he knows is about to be shattered...





	An Orphan and an Altean

**Author's Note:**

> I saw a lot of these role reversal things had Lance and Keith basically swapping personalities. I thought it'd be more fun to swap their backstories and keep those personalities. :D

Lance was glad that he wasn’t alone in space.

When he was seven years old, he had first thought that he was going to be alone forever. He’d been taken to a party by his parents - one of his friends was having a massive sleepover and it had been arranged for Lance to stay the entire weekend - and the rest of his entire family had set off from Florida to go to the funeral of an estranged relative. They’d been in a convoy, following Lance’s dad, when the weather had turned. A massive pile-up had taken them all from Lance and there was no other family to take him in.

It had been a massive shock. With nowhere to go, Lance had ended up staying with the friend as he was supposed to, and then for a couple of weeks afterwards. However, their family didn’t want them with him forever, so, when he’d overheard them having a heated discussion about it, Lance had packed his bag and run away.

He hadn’t gone far. Hunk lived a few miles away, and Lance had gone to his house. As soon as Hunk’s mother had opened the door, he had fallen into her arms in tears. She’d taken him in and had refused to let social services take him away and into the system. In fact, Hunk’s parents had ended up adopting him.

Suddenly, Lance had a family again.

Despite the loss of his own relatives, they had been there for him. Even Hunk had been a brilliant brother, helped him through everything, understood him. Everything he did from then on had been to repay them in some way. Helping around the house, working hard at school, getting into the Garrison with Hunk, striving to be in the fighter class… With their support, he was able to have a happy, normal life.

And then he’d dragged Hunk out to follow Pidge, and that had led to Keith and Shiro, then… Nothing in his life had prepared him for Blue, and that immediate connection. Nor had it truly prepared him for an intergalactic war with an empire that had ruled for 10,000 years. Still, he was coping - somehow. That was probably because the team had become another family of sorts. He’d gotten to know all of them quite well, except perhaps Keith.

The Red Paladin was still somewhat mysterious to Lance. He couldn’t understand Keith’s situation at all. From what he knew, Keith had been close to Shiro before he’d left for space. When the Kerberos mission was lost, Keith had become violent, according to the rumours. Whatever happened, Keith had ended up running away into the desert. His parents had come looking for him, though they knew he was safe since he’d messaged them at some point. Since the Garrison had no clue where he was, they had started a campaign against the Garrison, saying that they had driven their son away from his life. Still, Keith hid in the desert _for a whole year_. He was on his own and had seemed to have preferred that: Lance thought it was insane.

But Keith was part of Team Voltron, so Lance accepted that that was one of the weird flaws that Keith had. It went along with carrying a knife for no reason, threatening to kill leaders who had turned on their own people and being unable to understand how to do a team chant. However, Lance supposed that those were outweighed by everything that was… appealing. His looks, for one. The brave deeds he did, that determination to get the mission done, to _stop_ the Galra completely. That smug look he had when he figured something out for once, instead of rushing in, or when he’d thought he’d one-upped Lance. And knowing that Keith had his back, and he had his. It was a comforting notion in their situation.

“Lance.”

They’d gotten closer recently, probably due to the times when the Castle basically turned on them and left them to work together in order to survive. Now, they were able to bicker goodnaturedly, like friends, instead of the bitter words they’d slung at each other in the beginning. Still, there was something about Keith that had Lance glancing to him first, rather than to his brother, when they were discussing missions. It was worrying - they were in the middle of a war and-

“Lance!”

Jolting from his thoughts, Lance turned to Hunk, bayard raised and at the ready. “What?!” he exclaimed, alarmed.

“I’ve been trying to get your attention for ages, dude,” Hunk said, looking rather amused. It was the exact same expression he always got when he was going to tease Lance about one of his crushes. The same expression Lance always figured that Veronica and Luis and…

Shaking himself from that train of thought, Lance frowned, making a big show of it. “I was just…” He thought quickly, eyes darting around the enclosed space they were in. The stone corridor they stood in was part of a maze-like structure that they were currently trying to navigate. “...memorising the way we came.”

There was a noise in his ear that sounded suspiciously like a snort of disbelief. “Sure,” Keith drawled.

Feeling his face heating, Lance spun on his heel and continued on his way. “Oh? And what’re you doing, Mullet? Running ’round this thing without a second thought? Because that goes oh so well for you.”

“You-”

“Everyone,” came Shiro’s voice in Lance’s other ear. “Focus. We don’t want to get lost down here - who knows if we’ll be able to get out if we get distracted.”

“I wouldn't worry,” Pidge piped up. “I'm already mapping the place as we go, and using Lance and Hunk's markers to make sure I map their route, too. We'll all be able to get out of here.”

“Right. Good work, Pidge,” said Shiro, sounding pleased. Lance smiled as well: Pidge was a good friend and he loved hearing her outsmart everyone and everything. “Still,” Shiro added, and Lance grimaced, knowing what was coming next, “we should keep focussed. We still don't know what's going on here, so we don't want to be caught off guard.”

“Yes, sir...” said Lance, wishing he hadn't been distracted by _Keith_ , of all people.

“Right,” Hunk added.

“Of course,” Pidge replied, sounding distracted – though that was likely due to her focussing on collecting the information.

“Got it,” was Keith's response.

“Good,” said Shiro. “Princess, have you gotten your sensors to work yet?”

“No, I- I do apologise, Paladins,” Allura replied, also sounding distracted.

“Princess? Is there something wrong?”

“Ah. Not anything that you're thinking, Shiro, don't worry. It's just...” Allura paused. “If this _isn't_ a trap, then...”

Nobody said anything. They'd already had this argument on the bridge of the Castle. And none of them could really blame Allura for her optimism and hope. Lance certainly couldn't fault it, considering the possibility of finding someone alive down here, hidden from Zarkon and waiting for their saviours.

It had happened only a few hours before: a scan of the surrounding planets after their latest jump had come up with traces of Altean energy and the presence of Altean technology. Allura was hoping that it was the original Paladins in the cryo-pods, or a society of Alteans that had kept themselves from harm. Whatever it was, she wanted to find it and see what was there. Hunk and Keith had decided that it was a trap and argued against it. Shiro and Pidge, along with both Allura and Coran, wanted to check it out. As for Lance... Since he knew somewhat what it was like to lose everything, he had sided with the Alteans. And so they found themselves entering what looked like an ancient temple built into the strange, pink rock. Allura had tried to come but they had managed to convince her otherwise, so she was stuck trying to increase the range of the scanners so that they could find their way through the underground maze they ended up in.

“We'll find out what's going on,” said Shiro, breaking their silence. “Don't worry so much.”

“Of course. Yes. Coran is still working on the scanners, but there's nothing coming up as yet.”

“Okay, everyone. Let's keep our focus and continue our search.”

Once they'd all answered in the affirmative, Lance took a deep breath, lip curling at how stale the air was. He pushed aside his thoughts of Keith and started to look around. The rock around them had been carved into passageways a little taller than Allura and Coran and wide enough for four people to walk side by side. There were no protruding rocks or alcoves for things to be hidden in, unless they had been hidden in the walls. Whatever the thing giving off the Altean energy was, it had to be around here...

With the thought of hidden passageways, Lance stepped closer to the wall and placed his hand on it. He swept his palm along its surface and found nothing. Closing his eyes, he tried again, just in case he'd missed it, focussing solely on what he was trying to find. He didn't feel anything on the wall, but there was a strange tugging sensation, as if something was trying to get his attention. When he opened his eyes, he saw that there was a fork in the corridor, and the weird feeling was trying to draw him down the right one. Frowning, he turned to Hunk.

“Did you feel it?” he asked him.

“Feel what?” Hunk stepped up beside him, his eyes suddenly alight. “Did you find something?”

“Ah, no...” Lance hesitated. It was clear to him that Hunk had felt nothing untoward. He wasn’t sure that telling Hunk would be a good thing. After all, he'd been telling Hunk that he'd been having weird feelings since they'd got to the Castle. Hunk would probably tell him that he was imagining things, like he usually did. “Never mind. I think we should go right, though.”

“Uh, why? We went right the last two times. Shouldn’t we try going left?”

Blinking, Lance thought about it. He'd been the one in the lead, absentmindedly wandering along the path they'd ended up on. That meant that he'd been leading them to the right as much as he could. Maybe that tugging had happened before now and he’d been so preoccupied that he hadn’t noticed.

“Just a feeling,” he murmured, mostly to himself. He saw Hunk's brow furrow and he quickly turned to the right-hand path. “Gut instinct,” he told Hunk cheerfully. “I could always find my way out of the mazes we went to as kids.”

“Yeah, uh, you sure about that, buddy?”

Ignoring Hunk's lack of confidence in him, Lance set off, following that weird pull. It was kind of like the way Blue had called to him when he was at the Garrison. Sure, he'd ignored it, thinking it was some strange yearning to _fly_. Then Keith had explained the pull he'd felt and Lance... Well, he'd felt closer to Keith than he'd ever been. Still, he had been a pain, so Lance hadn't bothered to tell him.

Maybe this feeling was to do with the last Paladins of Voltron...

Despite his worrying, Hunk followed him as they wound their way on a particular route. Occasionally, they could hear the others, commenting on an artificially created rockfall and an underground waterfall. Lance would have been jealous of that, had he not been almost _consumed_ by his need to follow whatever was pulling him along. He didn't speak to them much, too busy focussing on that tugging, so it was a surprise when Keith said his name.

“Hey, Lance? You okay?”

“Huh?”

“Pidge just insulted you – twice – and you never even acknowledged it.”

“Oh,” Lance peered along the next corridor, the light on his helmet doing little to pierce the darkness. “Guess I'm just doing what Shiro told us and focussing.”

“Huh.”

“Hey,” Pidge interjected. “How have you guys been going in a straight line? Well, more or less. But, looking at this...”

“It's called intuition, Pidgeon,” Lance quickly said, before Hunk could say anything. “I'm just that awesome.” And he started down a darker path that went right again.

“Yeah, uh,” said Hunk. “Lance has always been able to find his way out of mazes like this, so...” His voice carried an air of uncertainty and Lance could tell that he was worried about him.

“Are you sure that was Lance,” Pidge replied, voice so dry Lance was sure he could snap it if he tried hard enough.

“Har de har.” Lance rolled his eyes. “See here, you-” He broke off when he rounded a corner and abruptly found what they were looking for. With wide eyes, he kept his gaze on it, fearful it would disappear as he approached it. “Woah.”

“Woah,” Hunk repeated. “I don't believe it.”

“Well, believe it, big guy,” Lance said, reaching out blindly to pat him on the arm.

“What? What's happening?” Keith demanded in Lance's ear.

“He found it,” Hunk informed him. “Lance found it. Uh, Allura…? You might want to come down here...”

* * *

The corridor Lance had led Hunk down had opened out into a huge cavern. It wasn't very long and would only fit one of the Lions if it crouched down sideways. On the other side of the cavern was a massive, white, obviously Altean door. It was surrounded by a particle barrier that halved the room.

All of Team Voltron stood in front of it. Even Coran had deemed it safe to leave the Castle in order to see what was going on. Lance watched the two Alteans' faces: Allura was biting her lip, her eyes shining; Coran's usual smile was gone, his gaze focussed on the panel beyond the barrier that would open the door. The rest of them stood around, waiting for something they could do, some way they could help their friends.

Eventually, Shiro got their attention. “Well, Princess? What should we do now?”

“We just need to find the panel which will shut the particle barrier down,” Coran explained, though he hadn't moved. “There has to be one, otherwise whoever built this place wouldn't have been able to get inside.”

“On it!” said Pidge, turning on her heel. Hunk followed, both of them headed to their right. Keith and Shiro went the other way. Lance, however, stayed where he was.

Something about this thing was calling to him. It was as if this place was connected to him, like Blue had been. Allura had once mentioned the original Paladins: maybe one of them had survived, like the one who'd piloted Blue. Maybe he was behind this door and he'd used Blue like Zarkon had. It wasn't malicious, of course; Lance could tell. The former Blue Paladin likely wanted to help them.

“Hey. Lance,” came Keith's voice from his left. Lance turned his head slightly to see that Keith had his hand on the wall. He was frowning at Lance, though whether it was with annoyance or concern, Lance didn't know. “You maybe wanna help?”

“I mean...” Lance turned back to the barrier. “Maybe... Maybe we just...” Taking a deep breath, Lance strode forward till he stood just in front of it. “Maybe we just need to knock, like I did with Blue.” And, without further ado, he lifted his hand and gave it two sharp raps.

The effect was immediate. With a whooshing noise, the barrier fell, collapsing in on itself. As it did so, some sort of force – wind? a cosmic connection? – pushed at Lance's body, making him take a step back. If he hadn't had his helmet on, Lance figured his hair would be blowing around, just like it had with Blue.

“Uh... Why did that work?” said Pidge from behind Lance. “I mean, I get why it worked with Blue, but this isn't Blue. This is...”

“I think it might be the former Blue Paladin,” Lance excitedly replied. “Come on!”

He didn't wait for them to reply, only rushed over to the panel. It looked a lot like the ones on the Castle, except for a single, significant difference. On the Castle, there were small buttons on the panels to let them use one panel for different functions – for instance, one could warm a room and another cool it, while yet another opened the wardrobe. This one, however, had only a single, large interactive button, big enough for someone's hand. Lance didn't think much of it: all the panels on the Castle responded to the Paladins. So, before everyone caught up with him, he put out his hand and pressed it against the panel.

“Ah, wait, Lance,” Allura called to him. “That panel will only work for those with Altean ener-”

A sudden shock ran through Lance. It felt as if he'd been surprised. Then a tingling started, all throughout his body. He was able to quickly parse where it was concentrated and was alarmed when it seemed to run down his arm to his hand. The panel glowed – his _hand_ glowed – with the same blue light he'd seen Allura use on the Balmera. As soon as the light spread across the entirety of the panel, right to the edges, a grinding noise started up, surrounding them completely. Lance barely had the chance to register that the door was opening – _but Allura said it wouldn't open for me_ – when something happened to his face. It was a sensation of heat, just under his eyes, and the shock of it made it painful. With a cry, he dropped his bayard and slapped his hands to his helmet, trying to hold his face. Confused and disoriented, he wobbled and ended up on his knees, hitting the ground hard.

“Lance!” Keith shouted.

“Oh, no! Oh, no!” came Hunk's voice.

“What happened to him?” Pidge demanded.

“Get back from the door,” ordered Shiro. “We don't know what's-”

“Peace, Paladins!” Allura's voice cut across them. She was closer than Lance expected and he looked up, blinking away the tears that had welled up. “Lance is fine,” Allura assured the others.

And, as soon as she'd said that, Lance realised that he was. “Y-Yeah. I'm fine,” he said, pushing himself up and onto his feet. Everyone was significantly closer to him now, with Keith just at Allura's shoulder. “What _was_ that?” he asked Allura, looking up at her wide eyes. “And-And why did it open...? Allura?”

“Who was your mother? Your father?”

Allura's question was so out of place and sudden, that Lance took a step back and hit the panel. “I- What? It's... They were a couple from Cuba. We all moved to Florida when I was three. What's that got to-?”

“Are you sure they were your parents, my lad?” asked Coran, sounding sad.

“What-? Yes, of course they were!”

“Uh, I can confirm that he looks like his dad,” Hunk informed them, his hand raised slightly.

“Why do you want to know, Princess?” Shiro asked, coming closer.

“Because,” said Keith, staring at Lance as if he'd never seen him before, “of those marks.”

“What marks?” Lance demanded, raising a hand to his face before remembering that he had his helmet on.

“The air is breathable down here,” Allura told him. “You can take off the helmet, if you'd like, and look in the visor.”

“Didn’t… Didn’t you say that it was too dangerous for humans to breathe in the air for too long?” Lance asked, fear beginning to rise up within him. If Allura was suddenly changing her tune…

“For humans, yes.”

Lance’s heart broke. “No…” he whispered, barely audible to even himself. He had no doubt that the others had heard him over their comm system.

By that point, everyone was crowded around him. “Dude,” Hunk said, his eyes growing wider with every passing tick. “You should take off the helmet…”

In all honesty, he didn’t need to look. Lance had realised what it meant when Allura had said the air was breathable for him. But that just couldn’t be true. His parents, though only in his life for a short time, had taught him not to be a liar. Yet…

Slowly, his hands trembling, biting his lip, Lance reached up. Once he had his hands on his helmet, though, he pulled it off in one sharp, swift motion. It came off easily and, once it was off, he paused, waiting to find himself without enough oxygen, if there was any at all. But his breathing continued as normal, if a little fast. Without looking at any of them, Lance turned his helmet around in his hands and peered into the visor, dreading what he would find.

Just under his eyes, in the exact same place as Allura and Coran’s, were little blue v-marks. Altean marks. They were glowing a little, though, once he’d spotted them, they faded until they were ‘normal’. He stared at them, his heart trying to rip itself from his chest even as it sank to his stomach. Nausea swept over him and he stumbled back once again till he found his back against the wall.

“You’re…” Pidge began, a little hoarsely. She stopped to clear her throat. “You’re Altean.”

“That’s- That’s not possible!” Lance protested. “I’m definitely human. _Both_ my parents were human. It’s- It’s probably just this crazy Altean technology-”

“But it _does_ explain how you knew where to go,” Hunk pointed out.

“Look, my parents wouldn’t lie to me and-” Lance broke off, suddenly remembering something he’d been told once. He’d told his dad that he wanted to marry a princess someday, since they’d been watching classic Disney movies that day. His dad had told him that true love sometimes didn’t work out the way he’d thought, had told him about how he and his mother had married young, that it hadn’t worked out, that they’d divorced - but, only a short while later, they had reunited, rekindled the flame and fallen in love more deeply. When he was younger, he had thought that was all the more romantic. Now, though… Lance wasn’t sure what had happened or how it had happened, but if he’d been conceived when they hadn’t been together… Lance let himself slide down the wall till he was curled up on the floor, his arms hugging his knees. “No,” he murmured, his heart and life in pieces.

Who was he, really?

“Lance…?” Keith said, sounding cautious.

Instead of responding, Lance pressed his forehead to his knees. It was a familiar position: he’d sat like that a lot after the death of his entire family. Except… Maybe they weren’t all gone. Maybe one of them was still out there. His thoughts ran rampant in his head, making him feel dizzy. He tightened his grip on his legs, trying to hold back his tears till he’d gotten back to the Castle and had time to process it.

Footsteps sounded in the quiet and Lance knew the others had stepped away to talk about him. That just hurt even more. Their whispers echoed a little in the cavernous space and he was able to catch a few words at a time. Things like “be okay?” and “might find his Altean relative” and “Alteans inside”. None of it could pull him from where he sat, though, and he let them go on without him. When he sensed someone beside him, he raised his head enough to see a serious-looking Keith watching him, his jaw clenched tight and fists at his side.

Eventually, the others came back and Lance straightened a little, bracing himself for more revelations. Maybe King Alfor was still alive. Or this was a place where you could press a button and the entire Galra empire would crumble. But, when he spotted the tears in Allura’s eyes and the sadness in Coran’s, he knew that nothing happy was beyond the doors.

“What is it?” Keith asked, and Lance turned his head away to brace for what they would see.

“It is nothing more than a tomb,” Allura told them, her voice wavering.

Tears beat Lance’s efforts to keep them at bay. As two of them slid down his cheeks, Lance was sure that his family was truly gone, that he’d never know how he had ended up like this. He was alone once more.

* * *

The planet that the Altean tomb was on consisted mostly of desert. In the distance, there were jungles, and Lance was sure he could see a line in the land that probably indicated some sort of deep ravine or river. Since they were on an alien planet, it might not be made of water. Thankfully, most of the desert consisted of hard-packed sand, strong enough to take the Castle landing on it, and so they hadn’t flown off and immediately into the next mission.

That was where Lance was now. He had taken himself away from the others, ignoring their concern, and found a window to sit against. Staring out of it, he watched the suns setting. Two of them looked pink to him, and the third was purple, so the sky was painted in those colours, the clouds alternating between them. It made him think of the pictures he used to draw when he was younger in a naive way to thank the Garretts. Once he thought that, of course, his heart ached. He missed Earth and he missed Hunk’s parents.

And he missed his parents, more so after this.

But which one was really his parent? His mom? His dad? Neither? Had he been picked up from the side of the road? Alteans could blend in with the local populace - had _both_ his parents been Altean? And were any of them really his parents? He had grown up with Hunk’s parents, rather than his own, so did that make _them_ more his parents?

Groaning, he raised his hands to his head, making sure to brush against his ears as he did so. He’d been worried since he’d found out that he’d suddenly gain pointy ears and grow by several feet. All his clothes would be ruined. And that was another thing: were other things going to happen to his body? He’d already tried rubbing at the marks, but they wouldn’t fade or disappear now, and he’d only made his skin red.

Just as his eyes began to sting with a fresh wave of tears, he heard footsteps. He froze, hoping that he was tucked away enough to be hidden from whoever was approaching. There was no way Lance wanted anyone to find him in this state.

Of course, since it was Keith, he spotted Lance at once and stopped in front of him. Lance looked up at him, not bothering to hide his misery. “What?” he snapped.

“Everyone’s worried about you,” Keith replied, bluntly. “And, since you weren’t answering the door or your comm, we split up to see if we could find you.”

Lance sighed. “You shouldn’t have bothered.”

Frowning, Keith folded his arms. It was the way he always stood when he couldn’t figure something out. “Why are you down here, anyway?”

Irritated by his very presence at this exact moment, Lance rolled his eyes. “Dude, I don’t know what your family life is like, but I just needed a little space to get my head around this.” Gritting his teeth, Lance turned his head then, staring out at the sky that was slowly becoming more purple than pink.

“I thought you’d have been happy,” Keith commented. “Hunk said you thought you’d lost your family when you were-”

“I _did_ lose my family!” Lance snapped, whipping around to glare at Keith. The other boy merely raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know who- _This_ ” - he gestured at his face - “isn’t me.”

“So… This is about you, rather than your family?”

“No, that’s not-” Lance made a noise of frustration, turning away from Keith again. “It’s about a lot of things, okay?”

“Like what?”

Trying not to growl at him, Lance turned back to face him once again. “Can you not see that I don’t really wanna talk right now, Kogane? Leave me alone.”

Unfortunately, those words didn’t make Keith do more than raise his other eyebrow. “Are you really sure you want to be alone right now?”

Lance’s heart stopped. “I…”

“Didn’t think so,” said Keith, looking smug.

“Urgh, look, I don’t need you to-to-” Lance gave up. “Fine. Whatever. Just stand there, then.”

“If I stand here, will you actually tell me why this is a bad thing?” Keith asked, his tone suddenly gentler than before.

Blinking up at him, Lance searched Keith’s face. There wasn’t concern or pity there. In fact, Lance could see that he looked rather confused. The sight almost made him laugh. “I… I don’t…”

“You don’t need to rush,” Keith told him, a small smile gracing his face for just a moment. It was rather encouraging and Lance couldn’t help but let his flimsy defenses down.

“It’s just…” Lance sighed heavily. “My family lied to me. I mean, I get that I was a kid, but I was definitely old enough to be _told_ at least. You see… I mean… I always thought my parents only had eyes for each other, despite their issues and arguments. But… one of them must have been with someone else at one point, or I wouldn’t exist. And I’m the youngest - my brothers and sister and cousins must have known _something_. I just feel…”

“Betrayed?” Keith suggested.

Again, Lance blinked at him. This time, however, he noticed how tense Keith was, how one of his hands had curled into a fist, how his jaw was clenched. “Uh… You okay there, hotshot?”

Keith seemed to come back to himself, startled. He stared at Lance as if he hadn’t noticed that he was there. Lance raised an eyebrow. Finally, Keith said, “I’m fine.”

Lance snorted. “Sure.”

Rolling his eyes, Keith uncrossed his arms so that he could slide down the wall. He ended up opposite Lance, legs crossed like Lance had, hands planted flat on the floor. “It’s just that I… understand, somewhat.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Mm. My… My parents, they…”

“‘Betrayed’ you, too?” Lance finished for him. “Did they adopt you or something?”

“No. I- They… They’re really dedicated to their work. My dad’s a fireman and my mom works for various charity organisations. But they work that much that, when I was a kid, I hardly saw them. I mostly cycled around babysitters and older family members.”

“Sounds rough,” said Lance, trying to imagine what it would have been like for him if he’d been put into care instead of adopted by Hunk’s family.

“Probably not as rough as you,” Keith admitted. “And I did meet Shiro. He was the only person to get me interested in anything - especially after my mom had Laura. She’s my little sister,” he added when Lance gave him a confused look.

“What? I didn’t know you had a sister!”

“I… kinda stopped talking to my family after I got to the Garrison.” Keith looked away, his head ducked down so that his hair cast his face in shadows. “Everything was a mess when my mom came home for Laura. I… didn’t take it well.”

“Aw, a little, put-upon Keith,” Lance teased. “Is that why you followed Shiro around?”

“Yeah.” Sighing, Keith lifted his head, a fond smile on his face. “I was probably gonna end up in jail for something stupid when he encouraged me to join the Garrison. He’s more family to me than my actual parents.”

“And then he disappeared, huh? Sounds rough.”

“Not as rough as you had it.” Keith tilted his head, his smile slipping. “But I can still kinda understand how you feel. Still… If you can find them, isn’t that a good thing?”

Shaking his head, Lance snorted. “Really? How do you figure?”

“Why isn’t it?”

“What?” Lance frowned at Keith, watching Keith slowly smile again. He almost looked helpless to stop himself from doing so.

“Why are you so hung up on this, Lance? Like, I get that it’s a shock, but I’m sure you can understand why your parents didn’t tell you when you were that young.” Keith paused, taking the moment to pull his leg up and lean it with his elbow. “There’s something else bothering you, right?”

“Uh, what makes you say that?” Lance asked, unconsciously shrinking back against the wall.

“Well, you’re usually so adaptable. And you take everything in stride. So why is this affecting you so much?”

“C’mon, man. It’s one thing to discover this sort of thing from someone telling you on Earth; it’s another to find out because I look like _this_.” Lance gestured at his face, scowling at nothing in particular.

Keith was silent for a while, long enough that Lance’s heart sank. Did he…? Before his train of thought could continue much further, however, Keith spoke. “Like… Like what?”

“You-” Lance looked at him incredulously and saw the genuine confusion in Keith’s eyes. “ _Look_ at me!”

“I am!” Keith protested, frowning with annoyance.

With a click of his tongue, Lance decided to dig his finger into one of his marks. “ _This_ , genius! The marks. I look like an alien. I _am_ an alien!”

“So what?” snapped Keith. “Allura and Coran are aliens. _We’re_ aliens to _them_. So what’s being an alien got to do with it?!”

“It changes everything!” Lance protested. “I’m not- It’s not the same and I…” Lance’s irritation abruptly faded and he slumped, eyes trained on Keith’s foot. “I’m not the same, am I?”

“Idiot.” Keith’s irritated tone had Lance looking up in surprise, confused as to why he was rejecting Lance’s words. “You’re still you. Is that-? Do you think the team’s gonna think of you differently?”

“Don’t they already?” Lance tried to counter, but he was faltering in the face of Keith’s furrowed brow.

“Of course they don’t. They’re worried about you, sure, but they don’t think you’re _different_.”

“I’m- But I could be… Even Hunk?” asked Lance hopefully, his head ducked so that he had to peek up at Keith through his lashes so he could see his expression.

Somehow, that made Keith smile, a small thing that made Lance’s heart beat a little faster as hope swept through him. “Even Hunk. I think he’s only worried because you’ve wandered off, though. I think he wants to see you.”

“That’s… Really?”

For some reason, that made Keith chuckle. “You tend to think too much,” he said.

“And you don’t think enough,” Lance retorted, sticking his nose in the air.

“Maybe. Look, Lance, nothing’s changed. You’re still the same person. You’ve not become a terrifying monster - just part Altean.”

“I… I suppose.”

“At least you didn’t find out you were, I dunno, part Galra or something.”

Lance shuddered. “God, can you imagine how horrible that’d be.”

“Well,” said Keith, slowly, “sure, you might’ve looked a little different, but you still would’ve been the Lance we all know and lo- Uh, tolerate.”

“Gee, thanks,” said Lance, laying on the sarcasm. Keith only grinned in response. Sighing, Lance relaxed properly against the wall, letting his head fall back so he was staring at the ceiling. “You’re probably right. And, I mean, Allura’s beautiful and Coran was a looker - we’ve seen those safety videos. So, I suppose this just means that I’m gonna get more beautiful than before.” He dropped his head down to grin at Keith and gave him a wink. “The girls are just gonna have a harder time keeping their hands off me.”

“Yeah.”

Lance blinked at Keith, waiting for more. That response hadn’t sounded sarcastic - in fact, it had sounded sincere, and Lance was a little confused. Usually, this would be the point where Keith would agree with a roll of his eyes or would tell him he was being delusional. Yet, Keith was only staring at him, his expression stunned. Tilting his head, Lance leaned forward, trying to reach Keith’s foot from where he was sitting.

“You okay, man?”

Keith startled, jerking in place. “Ah. Yeah, I’m fine. Just… a little tired. It’s been a long day.”

“I hear ya,” Lance replied, grinning. Then he followed that up with a yawn he wasn’t quick enough to cover up. “Ah. Maybe…”

“You should go sleep,” Keith told him, that small smile back on his face. It thrilled Lance to see it return. “Come on,” Keith added as he stood, before reaching out a hand to help Lance up.

They began to make their way back to the Paladins’ rooms. It was peaceful in the companionable silence. Somehow, Keith talking to him had driven away all of his panic. Now he felt as if he could face the possibility of him having family out there somewhere. After all, he wasn’t as alone as he had been feeling since he’d discovered the truth.

“Hey, Keith,” said Lance as they reached his room. “Thanks. I just… I didn’t really know what to think, especially because of these.” Lance gestured at his face again and sighed. “Allura and Coran can pull these off, but I don’t know if I can.”

For some reason, Keith sighed, sounding exasperated. “Stop being pigheaded,” he said.

“Huh? What’re you talking about?”

With a breath of a laugh, Keith shook his head. Lance thought for a moment that he was going to drop it. Instead, Keith stepped closer, right into Lance’s space. Before Lance had the chance to react, Keith raised his hand and lightly trailed a finger across Lance’s cheekbone. He knew that was where the marks were and Lance stilled, holding his breath. But Keith’s finger only brushed against him before Keith was moving back.

“They suit you,” Keith told him. Turning on his heel, Keith began to walk away, leaving Lance dazed. However, Lance didn’t have the time to wonder what that had been about because Keith stopped at his own door. Slowly, Keith turned his head a little, just enough that Lance was able to hear what he said next. “You look- Good.” Then, with a slap of his hand against the door’s panel, Keith disappeared into his room.

For a while, Lance stared down the corridor, wide-eyed. He wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened, but his heart was pounding and he was sure his cheeks had gone red. When he realised that he was still standing out in the open, he rushed to get into his room and out of the way of concerned friends and family who would probably mock him for blushing at _Keith_ , of all people.

But going inside was worse for, when he looked in the mirror, he saw that he was blushing so much that his marks were glowing.

**Author's Note:**

> It wasn't important to the story, but they've met the BoM by this point - but Keith didn't have a magic knife and left it behind so they just left disappointed.
> 
> NB: Lance's mum is still out there somewhere and isn't buried in that tomb. She may or may not be part of the rebels?
> 
> I figured that the story would follow mostly what happened in Voltron, with no real changes. Except that Lance and Keith get together at some point, Keith doesn't leave (maybe? not decided on that one) and Lance goes to Oriande. Ah, and "Shiro" tries to kidnap Lance when he's escaping with Lotor.
> 
> (Also, Keith got a sister, because of narrative purposes. Also, I figured, if Krolia was human, she'd have had more kids? Maybe...?)


End file.
